


Transformers: New Beginnings

by KitFez



Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Female Protagonist, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-10
Updated: 2019-10-10
Packaged: 2020-12-07 12:24:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20975867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KitFez/pseuds/KitFez
Summary: As Optimus Prime battles a crazed Titan in a wartorn plaza, her sisters-in-arms do battle with deadly foes to support her mission.New faces, old wounds, and a rising storm come together in the first chapter of a brand new Transformers universe.





	Transformers: New Beginnings

> _Change for the better._

The words were emblazoned on the base of a statue standing outside the Hall of Records, a statue depicting a broad-shouldered hero striding forwards. One of his hands rested on the shoulder of a small child, in the other was clasped a flagpole, the fabric of the flag itself long decayed to nothing. Behind him stood a hunched, faded, decrepit soul, left intentionally to decay while the rest of the piece still gleamed against the splintered glass towers and sundered concrete of what once had been a vast marbled plaza.

She didn’t pay it much mind as she raced past it, her wheels still spinning whilst they folded back into her legs as she sprinted up the great stone steps. She knew exactly who the statue was supposed to be, what they had done for their society. The reason these crystalline towers scraped against the night sky, the reason she was here, the reason she was able to stand, and think, and fight.

“_Though darkness may fall, light may always be found in the arms of the Saviour._”

The perfectly clear, onyx sky above began to swirl into fractal patterns, billowing and gusting into all manner of colours and shapes as energy arced through them and down to the metallic spires below. Warm rain thundered down from these vast metallic clouds, and a concentrated blast of lightning licked across the skyline before smashing down onto one of the towers; this was a thick silver assembly capped with a ceramic white sphere covered in thick-set glass diodes. Each one was illuminating with the same overbearing neon colour, a powerful _thrum _echoed through the cracked stone all around.

The tower split right down the middle, its component quadrants shifting and maneuvering in concert with the tower’s structure. Panelling and wires contorted and knitted themselves into workable limbs. Legs lumbering forwards, arms spread wide in greeting capped with those same energy-spitting panels. And, rising from the chest cavity, a helmeted face wreathed in scorched gauze and bearing a wide, sharp-toothed grin.

“Optimus Prime! So good of you to grace us with our presence.”

“Cloudbuster.” Optimus reached behind her back and grasped an ornately pommeled handle, which – as she pulled it upwards and forwards, pointing it with one hand across the plaza directly at her opponent – fashioned itself into a shining silver greatsword, its razor-sharp blades illuminated by a bottomless golden glow from the inset crystal in the hilt. “Again with those quotes. I wonder if your kind will ever tire of your lust for _power._”

Cloudbuster laughed, electricity dancing in demented harmony with it across her face and over the diodes now atop her pauldrons. “Even I think that one fell short, Prime. I’m going to have to _charge_ you extra!” With that, she slammed her fist into the concrete, the glass tubes shattering into blasts of blistering cyan lightning that coursed over the ground towards the Autobot leader.

Optimus sprinted forwards, twisting herself at the waist to dodge out of its way, before her wheels connected with the ground and carried her, now in vehicle mode, in a wide arc around her foe. She heard a faint crackling – and a familiar voice came through over the squeal of her tires.

“Puns! Always with the puns!”

* * *

“Oh, come on,” Optimus said over the commlink. “Just one is-”

“_No,_” growled Heartbeat as she begrudgingly climbed the ladder, rung after rain-soaked rung. “Or at least make it something funny.” Reaching the top, she hoisted herself and her equipment over the edge – and saw inside the control tower at the top. Two angled figures, identical save for the colour. One purple, one yellow.

Panic took her and – just as an errant blast of lightning struck what had previously been the Philharmonic Hall, the tower shuddering in its wake – she scrambled to cover outside the bulkhead doors, dragging her case with her. She listened intently, her Spark cycling so quickly that her eyes flickered – but nobody came to investigate. She reached up and wiped some of the torrential rainwater from the prominent red and white fins on her head.

“Boss, we’ve got a problem,” she whispered. “Two souls inside the room. That’s two more than Gadget said there’d be.”

“Rule number one: no plan survives first contact with the enemy,” came a third voice on the radio.

Heartbeat stared dumbfounded at the communicator. “Then why,” she said, “did we even come up with a plan in the first place?”

“You’ll figure something out, Heartbeat,” Optimus said. “You always do. I believe in you.”

Heartbeat sat there for a moment and, sighing, stood up – and knocked three times on the door.

Hushed whispers from the other side. Footsteps banging as someone walked towards her. The hurried beeping of a keypad. And finally, the double doors sliding aside to reveal a smug smile, a charging null-ray cannon and a slender yellow figure flanked by two sweeping wings.

“Well well wel-”

“THE THING IS, SUNSTORM,” Heartbeat yelled, swinging the case with all her might and knocking him clean out cold with a colossal _clang_, “you’re REALLY the last person I wanted to see today.” Looking up from his unconscious body, she saw the other Seeker’s gaze meet hers as he turned to race to the window. With no other options available, she hefted her enormous metal box over her head with both hands – and threw it across the room.

_Tong. _He went down like a sack of bricks.

“Attacking a medic _and_ abandoning your comrade when they’re injured?” Heartbeat stepped over the groaning purple lump on the ground, and cracked open the now-dented case on the workdesk. “I might not have my alt-mode any more,” she muttered as she produced the finely-machined metal cylinders and started screwing them on one by one, “but even I know when things won’t fly.” She stopped for a moment. “_Great,_ Optimus. Now I’m doing it too.”

* * *

“I knew you’d come around!” Optimus turned both front wheels to almost ninety-degree angles and skidded around, dodging another blast of blue energy as it fragmented and sparked into a sickly purple. Those same wheels collapsed into themselves as her cabin folded and contorted itself into her chest and shoulders, her sword raised with both hands. “Tell me when you’re ready. I don’t know how much I can keep this up.”

“I’hggfftggh,” hissed the communicator. “Ghh-hghgggccca-jjjjj-j-j-j-j-j-”

“I’m sorry, are we interrupting your _chat?_” Cloudbuster’s shoulders flared with oscillating power, her upper body swivelling to stay fixed on Optimus as she continued to pummel the ground and loose forth a torrent of electricity. “Didn’t your mentor tell you to pay attention when someone’s _speaking to you?_” This time the blast connected and Optimus was sent flying, crashing to the ground head-first with a sickening _crunch_.

Optimus pushed herself over onto her back, groaning in pain. She cupped a hand to her side, and felt searing pain before looking down to see her hand – soaked in bright blue fuel and refracting oil. _Strak. _She picked up her sword and jammed it with all her might into the ground before her before slowly, agonizingly wrenching herself upwards. Another blast of energy connected and sent her sprawling backwards with a scream of pain, the sword staying upright. The smell of scorched rubber filled her olfactory sensors; looking down, she could see the tires in her legs had burst wide open.

“Why do you still fight? Have you not heard the _Truth_?” Cloudbuster crouched down over Optimus like a child inspecting an ant. Her titanic form blotted out the shimmering storm in the sky above. “This world is_ dead_, and Lord Megatron will be the one to drag us all from the ashes. Kicking and screaming, if we have to.”

Optimus reached up and pulled off her dented faceplate, tossing it to one side across the plaza. She gritted her teeth, and tried to hoist herself up. Mistake; only pain.

_“But for the new Spark to burn_,” she quoted once more, grinning, “_the old must be naught but embers._” Cloudbuster reared back a fist the size of Optimus’ whole body, her titanic frame now gushing energy along her arm, her eyes a burning red.

“I’ve got to tell you,” said Optimus as the fist came crashing down. “I hate that book so much.”

It was as if the square itself had been plunged into darkness. All the sound, all the roaring and the flicker of the energy, it all collapsed into nothing – and then a streak of pitch-black energy whipped across from the tower in the distance, blasting Cloudbuster’s right pauldron apart.

Glass smashed all around as she roared in pain, her fists pummeling the place where Optimus had been – but she was already clear, the bare wheels having deployed from her legs and even now powering her backwards. Flipping her legs back over herself, sparks flying from the screaming exposed metal, she used the momentum to slowly stand up – only now with the sword struck into the ground.

The communicator fizzled back into life. “Prime! Optimus, are you alright?”

“I’m fine. Thanks for the assist, my friend.”

* * *

“It’s the only one you’re getting, I’m afraid,” Heartbeat grumbled. The barrel was gushing acrid black and red smoke, with half of the charging handle wedged against melted metal – and the other half still in her right hand. “Seems the Titanomachy still isn’t quite ready for the big leagues.”

“You knocked out half of her shoulder array. That’s more than enough.”

With a grunt, Heartbeat pulled the cracked scope off the top of the weapon and stuffed it into the case. “I was aiming for her feet.”

“Autobot _scum_!” She had barely turned around when the purple one grabbed her squarely by the throat and hoisted her up high. “The Titan was doing sacred work! You _dare_ interrupt her sermon?” The cannon on his shoulder rotated to face her, its end glowing orange and the blue pilot light igniting at its end.

Heartbeat was desperately trying to hold on to the Seeker’s clawed hand, to find some sort of purchase – while her other hand was grasping behind for a large hunk of metal – and found the broken charging handle. She brought it down, letting out what little she could of a battle cry…

..and then she was on the ground, the charging handle clattering beside her. The hand loosened its grip around her throat and she yanked it away – only for it to fall several metres away from her, its shoulder joint red-hot and torn in half, the flamethrower dormant. She quizzically looked at it, slowly looked up to see the swirling green and blue portal where he had once been – and watched as it faded from view, leaving only a diminuitive orange-coloured bot clad in a thick brown cloak. In one of her hands was what appeared to be a large two-pronged fork, the ends of which were gently smoking.

“Gadget?”

“The plan may not have survived, but I felt I should see to it that _you_ did. ” Gaget opened a pocket in her coat and dropped the fork inside. “Who’s going to put Optimus back together after her latest escapade? It’s not going to be me.”

“What did you…do to them?”

“Oh, just a quantum shunt.” Gadget wheeled around and began striding toward the doors. “Put them a few kliks upwards from here out of harm’s way.”

Heartbeat blinked. “North upwards or sky upwards?”

“They were both fliers, weren’t they? Unless that arm turns into anything important.” She reached into another pocket and pulled out a phone handset on a spiralled cord. “Elita, what’s your status? Are you any closer to what we need?”

* * *

“I’m trying to sift through this ancient data,” Elita said, poring over the tablets. “None of this section’s stored digitally. How did the record keepers get anything done?”

“I suppose it was an attempt to stop people from trying to get into sensitive data,” Heartbeat mused over the comms. “You can’t hack stone.”

Elite flinched as dust fell from the ceiling above, the building rattling under another impact. “Someone should tell that to Cloudbuster.”

“I’ll make sure to pass the message on to Optimus,” replied Heartbeat, laughing. “And I’ll make sure to show her how your eyeless head looks once it’s been ripped screaming from your body.”

As Heartbeat and Gadget began laughing in Elita’s ears, she picked up the tablet and launched herself sideways. Behind her, the wall burst inwards, a blast of raw energy tearing it asunder with a noise like a unfiltered pipe organ.

“Did I give it away too early?” The sound of Optimus’ voice boomed through her head. 

“You still need to work on your acting skills, Soundwave!” Elita pressed herself against the wall, her ears burning and sparking. “Heartbeat’s never been that nice to me.”

“Please continue to run. A symphony is best consumed over time, drank in like the finest Energon.”

“You never change, Soundwave.” Elita grimaced, and – gently setting the tablet down under a cabinet – produced her narrow blade from her boot. Flipping the switch on its hilt, its thin edge began to _thrum_ with increased rhythm until it was shifting in all manner of hues. “Don’t tell me you’re here for the same thing I am.”

“Cloudbuster is but one piece in the game,” came the reply, Heartbeat and Gadget speaking in unison. “With this we will control the entire board. A thousand Titans, to rewrite the world according to our master and his grand design.”

Elita burst through a nearby shelf, the falling books and stone making Soundwave lose their concentration for a moment, a hand brought up to shield the shimmering red lenses across their face. She dropped down to ground level and swooped her leg across, intending to trip her assailant, but Soundwave was too quick. Slamming a foot onto her exposed calf, they pivoted the speakers mounted on their shoulders and shot forth a torrent of sound. Elita’s helmet buckled and cracked under its intense pressure.

“Your audio receptors might be destroyed, but don’t worry,” they said in a mocking timbre all too familiar to her. “I’ll still allow you a few last words. Only you won’t be the ones speaking them.” Soundwave raised a heel and brought it sharply downwards, crushing Elita’s head into pieces.

“How about SHUT UP?” Two blades burst through Soundwave’s speakers from behind, a piercing whistle of feedback echoing throughout the Hall of Records. The fabric of the diaphragms torn, the bellowing acoustics could only whimper and stutter, and Soundwave could do naught but struggle against the two Autobots holding them back.

“So tell me, Soundwave,” said the one on the right.

“Who d’you think’s better,” chimed in the one on the left with the same voice.

“At fooling who?” Elita stepped out calmly from the shadows and reached down to inspect the corpse of the one on the floor. “Aww, you managed to squish Elita-Four. She always was the scapegoat.”

“**Do you think this is a victory?**” Soundwave had switched into a new, previously unheard voice now, their eyes burning a brilliant purple as they smashed the Elitas on both sides’ heads together, their lifeless bodies falling to the ground and turning the same grey as the first. “**You will not leave with your prize, I will spread the Truth to the thousandfold stars,” **– now grabbing Elita by the throat and breaking it with a sickening crunch – **“and your tricks will have been for ****_nothing._**”

The Elita with a snapped neck coughed out a laugh as she too turned grey.

“You really thought _I_ was the real one?”

* * *

Soundwave tossed the duplicate aside, span on his heels, and was whisked away in a torrent of spinning plasma.

“Team, we have a real problem,” yelled Elita-One as she blasted in jet-mode between the massive pillars of the entrance, tablet stowed away within. “I just ran into Soundwave. He Bridged out of here, but I don’t imagine the others are far behind.”

“We must act quickly,” came Optimus’ sage advice over the radio. “Well, quicker still than we already are.”

“You can’t be serious, Beat!” came the response from the quadcopter as it gently sailed down from the watchtower, Heartbeat clinging on for dear life.

“Believe me Gadget, I am,” Elita banked hard to sail around the statue and kicked in her afterburners to send her sailing toward the ground. “I just died _four times_! You know how long the Dupes take to recharge?”

“You destroyed four _quantum simulacra?_”

“Gadget,” Elita span out of her nosedive, her rear thrusters exchanging places with her intakes as her arms folded forwards to slam into the ground, her feet shoulder-width apart, “don’t leak the details.”

“It is good to see you in one piece, Elita,” Optimus called out, her steps thundering as she cleaved one of the arcing blasts in twain with her sword.

Elita pulled the tablet out. “Unfortunately I’m the only piece left. I sure hope you know what you’re doing with this!”

“I must admit, I’ve never done it before,” said Optimus, taking it. “Saint Windblade is normally the one to Speak with Titans.”

“Good thing I brought this phrasebook, eh?”

“Indeed.” Optimus held a hand and spoke from the tablet, a deep, rumbling ancient tongue.

“S’czoku dy_99droo, qb/kxn Ds’dkx up Oxob’qi. Kxns_00 cki C’DYZ!”

Cloudbuster’s smashing and pummelling of the ground came to an abrupt stop. She raised her head and glared at Optimus. “You DARE to address me with the _Vox Orbis?_”

“It’s working!” Elita dodged out of the way of an errant blast of electric fire. “I think.”

“Damn sight better than the Universal Greeting,” added Gadget.

“Iye k’bo losxq nom-so-fon. C/vooz x_56yg, drkd go-ws’qrd rovz iye.”

The diodes fizzled out on Cloudbuster’s pauldrons, the damaged one barely attached by a mess of tangled wires and leaking servos. She stared as her fingers locked into place, her hands sliding into collapsing forearms. “You…you can’t do this to me!”

“I am sorry, Cloudbuster,” said Optimus, stowing the sword on her back and handing the tablet back to Elita. “Freedom is everyone’s right, but Megatron has poisoned you. We will find a way to help, but you cannot be allowed to rampage in the meantime.”

“I have been shown the Truth!” Cloudbuster’s arms wrapped upwards and the broken sphere covered her screaming face. “How long will you silence the Many?”

And then she was quiet, the tower standing stock still in the rain-soaked plaza. Lights flickered on all around, and the storms petered out.

In the silence of the night, Optimus fell to the ground, clutching her side and groaning in pain. The others rushed over.

“Prime! Stay right where you are.”

Optimus tried to pass it off as Heartbeat scanned her. “I am fine, Heartbeat, please do not worry. We must get back to Upsilon immediately. Transform and roll – AAARGH!”

“Turn into a truck _now_,” Heartbeat said, emptying a canister of medical foam into the bleeding cavity, “and I’ll kill you before that wound does.”

Optimus gasped in pain, but eased up when the pain stopped, the foam hardening into a solid white carapace. “I suppose we can give it a minute.”

* * *

“How nice it is to see you again, Soundwave.”

No response.

“I’ve just got back from the Medbay. Knock-Out tells me that Hotlink and Sunstorm will make a full recovery. Do you know where we found them?”

Soundwave stared forward. Their hands slowly curled into fists.

“Come now, Soundwave! I gave you two of my finest operatives and you couldn’t even recover a brick from a library!”

“**That is quite enough, Starscream.**”

At the sound of this voice, both Soundwave and Starscream dropped to their knees, a sickly purple glow filling the room.

“My Lord, I was merely-”

“**Do you ever do things other than ****_merely_****, Starscream?**” The Air Commander gasped in pain against the pressure of the overwhelming voice; his brain module swelled almost to bursting point behind his eyes, purple smoke gushing from his joints. “**You are one of my Eight. You dare to mock the efforts of your comrade?**“

Starscream wanted to scream out in pain, but he clamped his jaw shut and held onto the hilt of the long, thin sword at his side. He tried to gather his thoughts, but they were simply filled with-

“I am sorry, Lord Megatron!” Starscream pressed his head against the ground, and – feeling the pain only worsen – looked up. “And I…I apologise, Soundwave.”

It was as if a switch had been thrown – full faculty returned to him and he slowly rose to his feet, groaning in pain. His partner stayed kneeling.

“**Soundwave,**” came the voice again. It was the Communications Master’s turn to hiss and smoke on the ground in obvious agony, though they remained completely without reaction. Starscream had to turn away, though the voice only became louder still.

“**The loss of the Storm Titan is deeply unfortunate. Cloudbuster was ours, but directionless without true control. To merely speak the Truth is not to understand it, as you know well. It must sing in your Spark. Boil in your blood. And so the loss of the Cityspeaker Tablet is grave indeed.**”

“My liege,” Starscream said skyward. “They have heard enough.”

“**I expect they have. But heed this, both of you. There are other Titans. There are other Tablets. But I only have so much patience.**”

Soundwave collapsed forwards. The light in the room shifted to a brighter, more stable hue.

“Thank you,” said Soundwave weakly as he stood up.

“Don’t mention it,” said Starscream as the two walked out of the room. “I’m just glad you’re alright. And you heard him. There’ll be more chances for you. Now let’s go repair those speakers. You being this quiet, it’s not right.”

The two of them chuckled in the same voice as the doors closed to the corridor.

* * *

“You know, I actually sort of missed rain,” Heartbeat said. “Sit still.”

Optimus nodded, grumbling as her medic squirrelled away at the gash on her abdomen. “I understand. There was a time when this planet held vast reservoirs of water, which fed great nourishing storms and thundering rivers that sundered mountains in their wake.”

Gadget kicked a rock absent-mindedly, which skittered and bounced across the already-drying stone. “Now it’s just…this. All thanks to him and his ‘Truth’.”

“Megatron speaks of truth,” mused Optimus, “but it is nothing more than a deception.”

“Do you think we can help Cloudbuster?”

“She must understand Megatron’s lies for herself.” Optimus gestured to the tablet. “I do not take the decision to place her in stasis lock lightly, but having her wreak havoc or brainwashing her into siding with us are _not_ options_._”

“Optimus is right, we dodged a _real_ bullet here.” Elita-Five was crouched, holding up the tablet while the other four were stood around, inspecting its text closely. “With the information here, they could have had the entire Titan race under their control.”

Prime’s eyes widened.

Heartbeat finished up, shaking her head. “What would we have done then?”

“Probably died.”

Everyone turned to look.

“What?” Gadget pulled a massively oversized hand on a stick from one of her many, many pockets and offered it to Optimus, who took it. “I said ‘probably’.”

“Never better odds. Listen, you guys head back without me for now. I want to take a moment here.”

“You sure you’ll be all right, Prime?”

“Of course. I’ll see you all later. And team? Fantastic work today. I am so proud of each and every one of you.”

And with Heartbeat holding on once again, Gadget and Elita blasted off over the horizon, Elita’s four duplicates flying in formation before twisting and shooting off in different directions.

Optimus walked gingerly down the steps of the plaza and stopped to stare up at the statue. Its gleaming silver metal shone against the golden light of morning. She reached forwards and rubbed a hand against the plaque she’d earlier brushed past.

“How did it come to this, old friend?”

> Change for the better.
> 
> – Argent-Commander Megatron

A single tear rolled down Optimus’ cheek.

“Why did Earth have to die like this?”

**Author's Note:**

> Hi all, and I hope you enjoyed reading this!
> 
> This story is what came of me asking in writing for a female Optimus Prime. Realising that I could in fact just write such a story myself, I decided to give it a go.  
And, as it turns out, there was at least the first chapter of an entire book just waiting behind the concept! Here's to the rest of it!


End file.
